big tree," replied her questioner, a visitor in
Canfield. "Twins they are, in the big hats."

"Oh! Yes." Miss Brooks's eye-glass went slowly to the place indicated,
and took a leisure survey. "You mean the little girls in calico dresses;
they are the Derings, I believe, but really, being in the city so long,
I find I am quite forgetting old faces."

"Indeed," was the reply, with a respectful air, though the desire to
laugh was almost irresistible. The little girls in calico dresses were
fifteen, and taller than Miss Brooks, who was just sixteen; but then,
dear me, she had on a train of party length, bushels of banged hair, a
little wisp of a bonnet, and little fine black marks along her lower
eyelid, so altogether she looked about twenty, and was perfectly
satisfied with herself. She could not look ahead to the dissatisfaction
that would be hers when she became twenty, and looked to be
twenty-eight.

When they started, ten merry carriage-loads, everybody stood in their
doors, and hung over the front gates to see them off, for Canfield was a
social little place, and felt a deep interest in anything going on
within its limits; so if good wishes could make a successful day, surely
they would have it.

Well, they did have it; yes, indeed, they did; and a happier set of
young people were never turned wild in green-woods. To be sure, there
were some draw-backs; for instance, when a dozen or so went off to swing
in a wild-grape vine, Sadie Brooks couldn't go, her dress was too long,
and it would tear her gloves. Likewise, when they played "drop the
handkerchief," "blind-man," and "down on this carpet," Susie Darrow
couldn't join, because her tie-back would hardly admit of sitting down,
let alone racing in the woods; besides, the wind blew her white plume
all up, and took the crimp out of her hair, and then she lost her lace
handkerchief, and didn't receive much attention from handsome Ralph
Tremayne; and altogether, she lost her temper, declared picnics a bore,
and told May Moore that no one but romps ever came to them anyhow,
which, considering that both she and May were in attendance, was a
remark which might have been improved on.

Sitting in a carriage all day proved to be no hardship to Bea, for
didn't Dr. Barnett spend nearly all his time there? and at Miss Lottie's
proposal, didn't several of them trim the phaeton in boughs and vines,
and deck her out in flowers until she looked like a forest queen? and
aside from